Saturday, March 17, 2012

Masculinity And The American Male

"Follow Me" portrays a masculine Christ

My six year old first grader
is wide-open, 100 mph from dawn until dusk.
He overflows with energy, laughter and excitement. He also sits in school a good portion of the
day. Kameron, like other rambunctious
little boys, has trouble sitting hour after hour while he reads, pushes his
pencil and colors his pictures. He has a very patient teacher who loves him
dearly, yet refuses to allow him to drop below her level of expectation. He is familiar with the principal’s
office. He has missed a lot of recess
and he has often been deprived of the things he enjoys most in life as a
punishment for misbehavior at school.
His mother and I insist that he learn to obey and respect his elders and
that he learn to cooperate and share with his peers and that he practice
self-control. It will be a long and
tedious journey but we are very confident that Kameron will learn these lessons
well and one day he will develop in a fine young man.

We are very satisfied with
his educational experience but we are also aware of the difficult dynamic of
educating young boys. Their rambunctious
display of energy is often considered detrimental to learning and desperate
attempts are made to suppress it. Little
girls seem to thrive in a system that requires they sit still and use
cooperative and creative skills. The
little male warriors are expected to do the same. If little boys fail to sit still and act
like little girls they are often ‘diagnosed’ with a ‘psychiatric disorder’
(ADHD) and fed Ritalin tablets to bridle behavior. Learning and behavioral problems are not cured
by Ritalin. Ritalin simply treats the
symptoms, the problem is still there. Is
it not troubling that so many child psychiatrists begin their diagnosis by
claiming that they, too, are ADHD? Our
society has become insanely dependent on chemicals to treat the symptoms of
their emotional, physical and spiritual problems while ignoring the possibility
of discovering and destroying the root cause of their problems.

If a young boy’s raucous
behavior can be tempered and controlled it can be a great benefit to the development
of the child and to society in general. These
energetic, masculine expressions need to be fostered and developed, not
chemically suppressed or destroyed. The
aggressive, independent boy who is ‘too big for his britches’ may one day be
the quarterback of the football team or point guard on the basketball
team. He may lead a group of Navy Seals
to save innocent lives by capturing or killing of an evil tyrant. He may help colonize the moon, build an
empire or change the world in which he lives by making an astounding discovery
or invention. Should we not control the
development of a young boy’s masculinity rather than try to feminize him?

It is likely my son will
advance to the 7th or 8th grade before he finally has a
male teacher. By the time he graduates
from high school he will have accumulated 14,000 instructional hours in
school. His life will be dominated by
female personalities. That’s why, as his father, I am determined to teach and
demonstrate for him masculinity.
Wrestling contests, fishing and camping trips, baseball and target
practice are activities that will help him distinguish his masculine role. There
are multiple life lessons to learn through competition and adventure. Children
with no father in the home are disadvantaged but are often taught to blaze
their own trail by surrogate male role models such as grandfathers, uncles and
coaches.

I’ve taught high school teen-agers
for nearly 30 years. I’ve watched as
masculinity has slowly declined and nearly disappeared among a large number of
young males. Some of them are ashamed to
act manly. Some are simply confused
about gender roles in society. Some have
been taught that superior male strength should be used to dominate and control
women rather than protect them.
Masculine independence is a foreign concept to many. Many have had females take care of them their
whole lives and they expect this to continue throughout their adulthood. This has
created a generation of young males who are petrified of a marriage commitment
or the prospects of actually having to provide for the children they
father. Too many 30-year- old males are
still playing video games at home, complaining because mom hasn’t made supper
yet, while their female counterparts have achieved a bachelor’s degree by age
22 and a master’s degree by age 24.

Feminization of the male is a
problem among Christians just as it is in the secular world. Male leadership in the Christian high school
where I teach rarely exists outside of the area of athletics. If you visit some of the Christian ministries
on our university campuses you will mostly see women in charge. We have feminized church ministries. Men may need a shoulder to lean on but they are
often embarrassed when offered a shoulder to cry on.

Hollywood has a much greater
impact in teaching worldview to our youth than the church does. Television entertainment has dedicated a
large portion of its programming to the feminization of men. The American family watches an average of 5
hours of television per day. Your child
may have watched over 142,000 hours of television by his sixteenth birthday.
(Nielson Research, Leichtman Research Group, Podcasting News.com) Everybody loves how Raymond is such a doofus
while Debra, his wife, seems to have a solution to every problem.

The feminization of men is
not always a passive, subconscious yield to a popular trend in society. It is also the result of a radical feminist
hate movement that was birthed in the 1960’s by women like Betty Friedan (The
Feminine Mystique) who compared the suburban home to a concentration camp and
encouraged women to seek fulfillment outside of their marriages. Another radical feminist, Gloria Steinem,
attempted to stir hatred for men by exaggerating violence in the home to
mythical proportions. She opposed the ‘patriarchy’
element in society by declaring, “The most dangerous situation for a woman is
not an unknown man in the street, or even the enemy in wartime, but a husband or
lover in the isolation of their own home.” (Revolution from Within: A Book of
Self-Esteem, pp. 259-61) I would never
minimize the problem of physical violence in American homes, but to make a
blanket accusation that all men beat their wives is like saying all Eskimos are
stupid or all Swedes are ugly. It
demonstrates how one’s feelings of hatred, in this case, hatred for men, can
totally eliminate one’s ability to be rational.

Our perfect example of
masculinity was Christ himself. Real
masculinity isn’t lording it over those who are weaker. Rather, it’s about caring for them and protecting
them. Christ was not averse to using
violence (Mark 11:15-19) when it came to defending his Father and what belonged
to his Father. He never raised his hand
to bring harm to a woman. He treated
women with utmost respect and his love for children was unprecedented. He thought so little of his earthly life that
he was willing to subject himself to the humility of a public beating by the
Roman soldiers and finally a brutal death on a wooden cross to purchase
salvation for those he loved.

True masculinity is the loving of our wives as
Christ loved the church. (Ephesians
5:25) Real men don’t just procreate. They
rear their children with love and compassion. They sacrifice for them, protect them
and invest tremendous amounts of time and energy in their lives. Our society needs men, real men, Christ-like
men, more now than ever before.

Kevin Probst - Teaches History, Government and Apologetics at the high school level in Columbus Georgia.